"All politics are not only obsolete but lethal." - Buckminster Fuller
Although Bucky Fuller was extremely optimistic about humankind's future, he was also certain that many of our cherished institutions no longer serve our global needs. Among his targets of obsolescence were politics, organized religion and the military, and he was quick to point out that our world had recently gone through a massive paradigm shift that he had predicted decades earlier.
Bucky began taking an inventory all global resources in 1937, shortly after he had an intimate meeting with Albert Einstein. His inventory was conducted well before the advent of computers or even calculators. Still, he discovered that each time resources are recycled we add knowledge to them, thereby allowing us to do "more with less." Then, he predicted that we would continue expanding this "more with lessing" so rapidly that we would reach a point when there would be enough resources to support all humankind.
He also predicted that the more with less paradigm shift would occur in 1976, and we now know that in 1976 we humans on board the planet Bucky named Spaceship Earth reached the point of having enough food to feed everyone. What most people don't realize is that this same abundance is true for all resources including housing, education and health care. We have attained what thousands of generations have struggled to achieve -- the ability to fulfill everyone's wants and needs and thus to have a world that works for everyone. Still, this has yet to become a commonly accepted reality because we continue with politics and business as usual. Tens of thousands of people die of starvation and war every day even though many people now realize that we have enough resources to support us all.
As Bucky often reminded his audiences, "Humanity is taking its final examination. We have come to an extraordinary moment when it doesn't have to be you or me. There is enough for all."
If there is enough, we don't need to fight over anything. And we don't need politics, politicians or any divisive organizations to govern or manage our affairs. What we do need is great administrators, but these are not elected positions. Our future global administrators need to be trained professionals who manage human affairs on behalf of us all and are not beholden to any corporation, government, religion or investor.
The time has come for "we the people" to recognize that we are a sovereign global community, and that the politics of divide and conquer that have been the norm for centuries are obsolete and leading us to the brink of extinction. This is a cause that Bucky championed from 1927 until his death in 1983.
As Bucky and so many have reminded us over the past decades, "war is obsolete." At a time when so many of us are confronted by the hardship of a failing economy focused on war, competition and greed, why do we continue spending billions of dollars sending professional politicians to far away cities in order to make governmental choices for us? All we need is global administrators to implement the will of "we the people onboard Spaceship Earth."
If we can instantly vote on who will win American Idol or Dancing With the Stars, why can't we instantly vote on whether to spend our tax money on jet fighters or schools, on aircraft carriers or health care, on weaponry or livingry? I believe that most of us would vote for the second option every time.
We are living in an extraordinary time when we have the opportunity to actually be global citizens in a "you and me" world. As the Occupy Movement has said, "we the people" must demand an end to politics, business and government as usual. Politics and big business are not working on our behalf, and they may be leading humankind to a failing grade on our final examination.
This is a particularly potent issue as we move deeper into the election season and big business devotes tens of millions of dollars to maintain the divide and conquer / weaponry focus of our country and economy. Perhaps it's time we all follow Bucky's lead and stop voting. He often said he was apolitical and did not vote because he didn't want politicians to feel that they had his support.
We can also follow the template of Bucky's entire life of service to all (as is true of the people who wrote commentaries in A Fuller View) by practicing being grateful for what we have and looking to see what we can do to share our abundance with those who are currently excluded from the new paradigm of sustainable sufficiency. Weaponry to livingry is the path that will do just that. It's also an idea whose time has come if we are to survive and thrive on our beloved, fragile Spaceship Earth.